The Last Five Years

With the announcement of the Regional Medical Library contracts for 2006-2011, all of our staff look forward to continue serving as the RML for the National Network of Libraries of Medicine for the New England Region. The last five years have flown by and there is always much energy to feed on from the people in our region. From Calais to Cos Cob NER coordinators have logged countless number of miles to meet and train network members throughout our six-state region.

We'd like to take this opportunity to recap some achievements and numbers to take stock of our region our regional activities

Here are some figures representing our network members:

Just to remind you, Affiliate members are libraries like public libraries and other types of libraries that do not participate in DOCLINE. These libraries provide other health information services and they can call upon us for training and other resources we provide.

To support librarians and their use of DOCLINE, Loansome Doc, and LinkOut, Mark has traveled throughout the region for individual or classroom training sessions, these average about 20 visits or sessions a year. We've gone through several revisions of DOCLINE and Loansome Doc, all calling for onsite training sessions done at your request.

With regards to technology, Penny has provided information support for health science library association lists and websites, and assisting members in technology decision-making. Penny has also traversed the region to bring members seminars on contingency planning, link resolvers, and hardware and software technology trends.

Awards

To support the work of medical libraries, the RML has funded electronic document delivery installations helping member libraries to improve their services. This is part of our mission, to enhance access, and this type of support has gone a long way in improving access to health information for your patrons. More than $230,000 has been awarded to network members throughout the region.

Awards for course development and sponsorship of programs has allowed network members to design and conduct courses and seminars for diverse audiences on topics like, health statistics, health literacy training, telemedicine, and clinical information systems. Many of these have involved collaborations with your states' medical societies and health foundations.

Awards for short-term outreach to newer audiences were introduced in this contract period as Express Outreach Awards. Libraries and other institutions are able to apply for funding to establish relationships with local community agencies and offer training on health information resources. These awards have supplemented outreach efforts conducted through subcontracts. Express Outreach has proven to be way to entice smaller libraries to do outreach.

Training Activities and Subcontracts

Donna and Michelle have traveled throughout the region to put on 320 training activities over the last five years. Both Donna and Michelle have introduced an array of courses geared towards all types of librarians, health care providers, and the public.

Subcontract projects have conducted health information promotion to communities abroad and health related organizations. Reaching urban and rural populations alike, projects have targeted special populations like the economically disadvantaged, the underserved minority populations, and senior populations. NER has funded over 35 subcontract projects over the last five years with $1,188,000 distributed to member and collaborators.

All of our work in the region involves making health information more available to the people who need it. We will continue to be our members' critical resource for improving information delivery, hearing your concerns, and working together. We look forward to being a source of training on NLM resources and a funding source to expand learning opportunities for librarians and your patrons.

Hathy will be joining us in various but related capacities:

Hathy will serve as the region's Public Health Coordinator for identifying needs and providing services to public health agencies and offices throughout the region.

Hathy will also serve as the project coordinator for the PHPartners.org project. Hathy will be identifying and selecting resources to include in the Partners for Public Health Website.

Many of you have already met Hathy at NAHSL or have attended her presentations at MLA.

Hathy Simpson has worked at the Lamar Soutter Library, University of Massachusetts Medical School, on several projects related to providing information resources to the public health workforce. She was the project coordinator for the Evidence-Based Practice for Public Health Project, a four-year project that was supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Association of Teachers of Preventive Medicine. Hathy's work on this project included identifying public health journals, bibliographic databases, and evidence-based resources for public health practice. The identified resources and continuing education courses on Evidence-Based Public Health are available from the project's Web site at http://library.umassmed.edu/ebpph. Hathy's work on the project also included a research project that identified the information needs of public health professionals at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. The results from the study were presented at the American Public Health Association Annual Meeting and have recently been published in the journal BMC Public Health. Hathy presented at the 2006 Medical Library Association's Public Health/ Health Administration Section Program, Evidence-based Public Health Librarianship.

Hathy has also worked as the Public Health Outreach Liaison for the New England Collaborative for Public Health Workforce Outreach and Education Project funded by the NN/LM NER. Hathy continues to be the Content Developer for the Partners in Information Access for the Public Workforce Web site. PHPartners is a collaboration of U.S. government agencies, public health organizations and health sciences libraries whose mission is to help the public health workforce find and use information effectively to improve and protect the public's health.